24 Tone Clocks

24 Tone Clocks

Featuring two of New Zealand’s finest pianists, Jenny McLeod’s 24 Tone Clocks is the definitive recording of an extraordinary series of compositions. A lifetime in the making, 24 Tone Clocks is a summation of Jenny’s decades-long immersion into Peter Schat’s ‘tone clock’ theory of chromatic harmony.

In the early 80s Peter Schat introduced Jenny to his compositional theories, and she immediately recognised many ideas she had already discovered for herself. “It dawned on me,” says Jenny, “that Schat had come up with the basis for a new terminology and framework of thinking with reference to the (equal-tempered 12-note) chromatic system-something that I felt was not only simple, practical and workable, but also fresh and full of imaginative potential for the composer. Later in Amsterdam, Schat showed me the rest of his writings, which were largely in Dutch. I came home and immediately started learning Dutch, so as to translate and understand all of it. These translations were eventually published in English as Peter Schat’s The Tone Clock.

Featuring:

• Michael Houstoun (piano, tracks 1–6, 19–24)
• Diedre Irons (piano, tracks 7–18)